GoDaddy Scammed Me - Here's PROOF!

[member-162055]

I would like to let everyone know that GoDaddy outright scammed me today and after speaking with Greg Goodrich, manager @ Godaddy, he said there is nothing he can do about it. Please share with everyone, this is terrible way to do business and treat customers.

Here is the PROOF that GoDaddy scammed me:

Notice the 1st screenshot shows I won the auction fair & square, then the 2nd screenshot shows someone else won it 5 minutes later. I found out about this shortly after I won the auction, I logged into my GoDaddy account to see the 2nd screenshot below and I was absolutely shocked because they were saying I didn't win the auction, nor did they even give me the opportunity to win the auction AGAIN after I had already won it.

How corrupt is this? Especially after all their other auction scams that have happened. GoDaddy CANNOT be TRUSTED, they have no morals and do not care about scamming their customers and screwing them over.


Now this is what I see in my account and GoDaddy refuses to honor the fact I won the auction and they could careless about doing anything about this corruption so it just keeps happening.


Thanks GoDaddy for such a wonderful experience! It sure makes me miss NoDaddy.com which was a very popular site that exposed your corrupt company and you bought it to cover all your corruption and sweep it under the rug instead of doing the right thing.

 

[barman]

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

This is why I constantly refresh the auction pages. They're "real time" but really, they're not. You have to refresh the page to get the true state of the auction. Which is what I'd be doing when bidding in the 4 figures.

Anyway - sorry for your loss.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

As you can see in the 1st screenshot the auction ended @ 11:25 with me being the winning bidder.

This is a bug in GoDaddys system. <<this is why the first comment in this thread mentioned always refreshing auction pages>> many members have experienced this.

I can see your scam argument with reference to page's refreshed wording, "Congratulations! Your bid won." Because of the changed wording, you stopped bidding, assumed your time and efforts resulted in the asset acquisition, and the news that you didn't win the auction diluted said time and efforts, potentially costing you a great sum of potential earnings.

Nonetheless, as you can see in the second screenshot, another bidder placed a bid at 11:24, thus resetting the auction end time to 11:30. If you would have refreshed the screen after that bid was placed, between 11:24 and 11:30, you would have noticed you were outbid, and the end time extended.

With all of GoDaddys technical expertise, and resources, I don't see how this is still a bug in their system. It is losing GoDaddy auction revenue. Wouldn't a company with shareholders want to maximize revenue? Point being, if GoDaddy had corrected this bug, I assume you would have bid over the $9,100 winning bid? e.g. the bug effectively killed a potential bidding war.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

The wording, "Congratulations! Your bid won."

If you look at the page source of an existing current GD auction, you will find the text "Congratulations! Your bid won." despite the auction still being active.

Meaning, the code is prepared to deliver a Congratulations message to the high bidder, upon the timer running out (without a refresh). There doesn't appear to be a 2nd confirmation in place before the message is delivered. Why can't GD write a line of code something to the nature of: Don't display Winning message without a refreshed, external, 2nd factor authentication of the auction ending.

Godaddy would have emailed you that you have been outbid?

@member-162055 -- Please check your email, and confirm.

 

[barman]

I'm not going to comment on other GoDaddy issues in this thread because I actually like using them for most things.

But regarding the auction platform issue that people keep complaining about, this a pretty easy fix @Joe Styler

Here's a video of me replicating the issue.

The problem is this is all running on the client-side with no validation. You folks are running a jQuery script to ping an endpoint every 20 seconds. If the user has a bad or no connection, the JavaScript keeps running as if they're still connected. That is a bad user experience (people get pissed then you get a bunch of bad press on blogs and forums).

The fact that you're dealing with tens of thousands of dollars every day ... I don't know, you should have something a little more sturdy than a jQuery ping interval on the client side.

Either -
1. But if you must ping an endpoint on an interval: Do not show a "Sorry" or "Congratulations" message until it's validated from the server side. It's very easy to detect if the API call failed, or if the user is disconnected. From there you can show a "We're sorry but it looks like you're disconnected. Please refresh your browser" or something so people are not given false hope.
2. Refactor to use Web Sockets so you have true, real-time bidding. Web Sockets make it much easy to detect the user's connection state.

If you're looking for a lead engineer with a strong QA history, you know where to find me.

 

[tonyk2000]

This is a bug in GoDaddys system.

This whole thing smells like 100% unacceptable programming style. Namely, it appears that the page with the timer and "you won" message is generated by the users browser using java or the like. Or, in other words, it is likely that at least some parts of the page are not sent by the server in realtime.
I may be wrong though.
How to check?
Easy.
One may just join any auction, become high bidder at some point of time before the auction ends, and disconnect the router or whatever equipment he is using for internet connection. What will happen with the auction page if it is still open? Wouldn't it show "you won" message at some point of time (without internet connection)? I'll try to check this, just need to find some free time

 

[tonyk2000]

I bet that @Joe Styler will recommend all of us to always put their max proxy bid, and forget about refreshing pages. And we will not follow this advice, obviously. And the history will repeat itself many more times...

 

[MapleDots]

Believe me, I was constantly refreshing the auction page. This has nothing to do with it.

Besides, this reasoning doesn't explain the fact of why I won the domain in the first place.

Let me ask you, how would you feel if you WON an auction that was ENDED and then
5 minutes later, Godaddy sold it to someone else?

Thank you for being empathetic!

First of let me congratulate you for seeing the value of that domain and actually stepping up to the plate.

I have lost a few auctions in the past where I waited until the domain resolved and then I contacted the auction winner to ask if they had any second thoughts and wanted to move it out at auction price.

In a couple cases I actually got the domains because the person that bought the domain was caught up in auction fever and actually regretted buying it.

So there is still a chance.... probably small but a chance nonetheless.

 

[Ategy]

@member-162055 .. I hate to tell you this .. but indeed you didn't win the auction as you were not the last bidder before 11:25. Although it definitely sucks that you were told otherwise by the incorrect "congratulations statement" and that you weren't aware of the new bid.

That being said .. this almost isn't even a bug .. and almost more a result of very sloppy programming.

It happened to me shortly after the auction changes .. I reported the issue as well .. what's worse is that I know how to repeat it 100% of the time all day long if I wanted to.

The confusing customer service problem you ran into is a separate issue that is unfortunately a huge problem at GoDaddy in that it's a massive multi-department company. The first customer service agent you talked to obviously isn't aware of this bug/glitch/sloppy coding loophole. It's a big problem at GoDaddy both in terms that it gives bad info to customers like in your case when the first agent agreed that you won when in fact you unfortunately didn't .. but it's also what I feel is the root cause for there being such an unforgivably large number of bugs and issues on GoDaddy's overall platform .. simply put .. more often than not, one department has no clue what goes on in another. It's not a problem unique to GoDaddy .. in fact you'll find that in most larger companies more often than not the right hand often has no clue what the left hand is doing. It's just that when your business almost entirely takes place on a huge platform, that platform is updated and tweaked regularly .. .and often one department's changes has unintended consequences in another. So it's not an evil thing .. but you could fairly say that they could better at auditing their platform integrity. This issue is nothing compared to others both past and present.

This isn't GoDaddy out to be evil or trying to scam you .. in fact .. chances are you'd have been willing to pay more for the domain ... which would have put more money into GoDaddy's pocket's (remember that they keep 100% of auction revenue for domains that were registered at GoDaddy when it expired).

All that said .. I remember being really upset when it happened to me .. so I feel really bad for you .. maybe with this happening for a high $x,xxx it might get them to address the issue? Yeah .. ok .. lol .. maybe not. If there's one thing I will concede to you that GoDaddy is fantastic at .. it's dismissing bugs and other issues and trying to sweep them under the rug. The number of bugs and issues I've reported are well into the double digits .. and it's extremely rare that I even get acknowledgement or a request for more info .. I can still repeat a serious security issue I reported 3 years ago .. I can still repeat accessibility issues that caused me to lose domains 2 years ago! Again though .. it's not evilness .. it's just the result of GoDaddy being too big for any one person or team to truly have a grasp of everything in the entirety of their platform.

 

[Internet.Domains]

Latency, loss of connection to server, and refreshing the page does not explain how you can receive a page, from the server saying:

"Congratulations! Your bid won."

"Auction ended"


From an IT standpoint. The server should NOT be dishing out scripts that are false. Especially if the auction has not ended. Latency and loss of connection does not explain how or why false pages are on a server in the first place.

If the server was coded properly there would NOT be false pages served if there is latency or loss of connection on the user's side.

In other words, latency and loss of connection are a completely different issue and really has nothing to do with the auction server performance.

 

[Chris Hydrick]

they have been EXTREMELY NEGLIGENT which lies squarely on the shoulders of the 2 con artists running the daycare called GoDaddy Auctions, @Joe Styler @Paul Nicks which is why I called for them to be FIRED immediately in the blog post I posted above.

I do have PROOF, did you not see my original post in this thread? @Joe Styler & @Paul Nicks are 100% responsible for all of this, it's their dept., they are in charge, why do you think they make it impossible to contact auction support because they are scamming people, no phone support, no email support. This is ALL on them, they run the show @ GoDaddy Auctions!

What's really crossed the line of inappropriate is @Joe Styler & @Paul Nicks continue scamming people for over a year now and think it's OK while destroying peoples lives and then treat them like crap

@member-162055 -- Reuben? -- YOU ARE COMPLETELY OUT OF LINE!

It seems as if you are only attacking @Joe Styler and @Paul Nicks because they are the only public facing point of contact you can pin your mistake on. I would have called it GDs bug, but at this point it seems more or less likely you are trying to scam and/or slander GoDaddy and/or their employee(s). If that's not your intention, you may want to change your tone/strategy; possibly even reevaluate and apologize.

You created a thread saying GoDaddy SCAMMED you (with proof), yet your proof is flawed. In fact, your proof proved you did not win the auction. Given the auction ended at 11:25, and the winning bidder placed his/her bid at 11:24.

How do we know you didn't see the outbid email, or that you didn't refresh your screen? Then think, "This is not fair, the screen said I won at $9,000! I will complain, and claim ownership at the $9,000 price point because I don't want to pay more after it said I won."? Fact is, we don't. As the bug been around for a while, ANYONE could have done that, and started this thread. I'm not insinuating this happened, I'm just pointing out how it would feel to be accused of another narrative. Kinda like what you are doing to Joe and Paul here.

At first I was rooting for a happy ending and GoDaddy takes this as a notice to fix the issue many here have experienced.

But you don't see us (members who have previously experienced this) disrespecting two of GoDaddy's best public faces on NamePros, simply because we don't know, or are too lazy, immature, cheap, or whatever the defect is, to handle this appropriately.

Shame on you @member-162055.

 

[member-162055]

Good News!

We have succeeded in being allowed to conduct Discovery against GoDaddy! This is a HUGE step forward!

Today marks the 1-Year Anniversary since I won the domain, OrganicFlowers.com on GoDaddy Auctions and it's the same day I started this Namepro's post after speaking with Greg Goodrich, Manager @ Godaddy, saying there is nothing he can do about it. Well now GoDaddy has to do something about it!

Today is also me & my wife's Wedding Anniversary!

“Justice will prevail!” ~ Tsugumi Ohba

Thank you @stevanlieberman

 

[Chris Hydrick]

tagging @Joe Styler & @Paul Nicks

1st screen shot: Auction ended @ 11:25 (6 minutes after bidder 17 last bid)

2nd screen shot: Auction ended @ 11:30 Bidder 591395 (I assume this was bidder 17) last bid at 11:24

...

What looks to have happened?:

The assumed winning bid of $9,000 was on the clock as of bidder 17's +$531 bid at 11:19.

One minute prior to the 11:25 auction end time, bidder 59135 placed a $9,100 bid at 11:24.

Thus, resetting the auction end time to 11:30.

FWIW: Here is a nP thread about GD auction end time extensions.

 

[tonyk2000]

@member-162055 , I'm sorry for this loss. Really. May I ask you, why did you prepare a screenshot of the winning bid after you thought you won the auction? I mean, was there anything unusual that prompted you to do so? Or, isn't it the first time you experienced such an issue?
And, by the way, what (if anything) GD automatic system emailed you after the auction was finished?

 

[wwwweb]

It looks to be a last second bid, as maybe you did not refresh your screen, and when you did you found out you lost.

Once the auction clock runs out, and the auction closes, it is impossible to place a bid. Now if someone is using a script, or bidding bot, and bid in the last second, and the system closed it out, but internally the clock reset, you would come to this issue. I have seen this a few times.

It is impossible for an auction to end, then come back to life, you just got sniped.

Maybe you can list the winning bidders ID, and we can cross reference to see who the buyer is, aka Huge Names or something.

I have had a domain purchase reversed also, was being sold by huge names for $2,xxx they said they did a price update on the system, which did not update correctly, and godaddy said they couldn't make them transfer the domain, yet they faced no repercussions either because they are such a good customer.

 

[Ategy]

The auction is extended by (5 minutes and 59 seconds?) every time somebody places a bid within (5 minutes?) of auction end time.

That's not entirely accurate. What happens when a bid is placed with less than 5 minutes to go is:

- The new end time gets reset to 5 minutes, rounded UP to the next full minute end time.

Here are a few examples with original auction end times of 11:25:

Bid at 11:19:59 = Auction ends at 11:25:00 (nothing changes)
Bid at 11:20:00 = Auction ends at 11:25:00 (nothing changes)
Bid at 11:20:01 = Auction ends at 11:26:00
Bid at 11:20:59 = Auction ends at 11:26:00
Bid at 11:21:00 = Auction ends at 11:26:00
Bid at 11:21:01 = Auction ends at 11:27:00
Bid at 11:23:59 = Auction ends at 11:29:00
Bid at 11:24:00 = Auction ends at 11:29:00
Bid at 11:24:01 = Auction ends at 11:30:00
Bid at 11:24:59 = Auction ends at 11:30:00
Bid at 11:24:59.999 = Auction ends at 11:30:00
Bid at 11:25:00.000 = I have no clue
Bid at 11:25:01 = You get an error saying your bid isn't valid because auction ended.

 

[NamesMax]

Anyone with legal experience have a moment to chime in on the quote from @member-162055?

I am definitely not a lawyer, however I have registered trademarks. Many believe that a trademark can only be enforced if it is registered with the USPTO. That registration only makes the trademark more defensible. You can claim a trademark without registering it, and it can be defended.

If you look above at top banner, you will notice "tm" next to NamePros logo. This indicates that they are claiming a trademark on it, but have not actually registered it. I just did a "TESS" search on the USTPO site and indeed there is not registration for NamePros (although there is one for NamePro filed in 1993)

When a mark is registered, then the trademark will show the "little r in a circle" (can't figure how to replicate that on my keyboard.) That "r" indicates that it is actually registered with the USTPO, or is a registered trademark. My understanding is that you can not legally show that "r" unless it is formally registered.

If somebody tried to use the term NamePros to open another domain blog, NamePros would still have a valid TM because they could easily establish the use of the name in commerce, however if it was registered with the USTPO it would be easier for the lawyers to defend.

Again I am not a lawyer, however that is my understanding of how it works,

 

[Ategy]

Hey @member-162055 .. I totally understand your frustration .. and you most certainly are entitled to be upset .. the glitch most certainly cost you a potentially very important domain!

However you're really going pretty far with your extreme accusations.

It's important to note that GoDaddy did NOT profit from this glitch .. in fact .. the glitch has cost them money because several auctions were ended prematurely because people like you thought their auctions were indeed finished and did not rebid at higher amounts. In this very case maybe the other bidder was prepared to go up to 15k or even more?

Also .. the unfortunate fact remains that somebody else bid at 11:24 .. so unfortunately you did not win the domain at auction.

That being said .. you most certainly are justified at being frustrated with GoDaddy and the GoDaddy platform. It is indeed full of bugs and glitches. Whether it's to the point where you can or should take legal action is really beyond me though?

I didn't listen to your phone calls, but if they were rude to you or didn't treat you right (aside from telling you that unfortunately you did not win the auction), then you could be justified to be frustrated there as well .. again .. i didn't hear the calls, so it's impossible for me to say either way.

But as I've said several times now, I don't think there is any one person to blame here. Most of the blame is on the inefficiencies of large corporate structure. Yes .. ultimately upper management is to blame (in this case it's potentially at levels even above Paul and Joe) .. but I'm pretty sure they aren't "corrupt", nor are they "con artists", nor are they out to deliberately scam people .. unless you have tangible proof, then your claims above have really crossed the line of what's appropriate.

This glitch is most certainly a problem, and like any bug or technical issue at any platform, I actively encourage you or anyone to keep discussing it and pushing the point that things need to be fixed ... but I really suggest you do so in a calm level-headed manner .. I know you're extremely frustrated, but the way you're posting now you're just painting yourself as being somewhat over the top and irrational .. and you're going to lose people's support and interest by not keeping your arguments factual and constructive.

 

[member-162055]

I wanted to give everyone an update that I have been in a legal battle with GoDaddy since this happened 8 months ago. I have been working with one of the best domain attorneys, @stevanlieberman , CEO of APLegal.com. I am waiting to see when or if we're going to court which should be happening very soon.

First of all, I would like to thank all of those who have been instrumental in helping me with this case because it has not been easy. While Stevan has tried to come to a resolution with GoDaddy, they have proven to be extremely difficult to deal with. A few months ago, they hired outside counsel instead of using their own legal dept. It seems they are trying to play a power game since they really don't have any defense!

And while all this was happening, GoDaddy was embroiled in another auction scam with serious allegations against multiple employees:
https://onlinedomain.com/2019/03/29...loyee-caught-bidding-on-domain-name-auctions/

In my research, I found another popular site, http://antigodaddy.com/ and although unrelated, I have also seen lots of customers talking about how when they search for a domain, GoDaddy will register it and then try to resell it for more. I guess this site has replaced NoDaddy.com

GoDaddy has thousands and thousands of complaints online and a very poor reputation:
https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.godaddy.com
https://www.bbb.org/us/az/scottsdale/profile/web-hosting/godaddycom-llc-1126-22000169
(Don't you love how buying the BBB accreditation, gets any business an A+)

GoDaddy Auctions software is such a joke that someone listed ABC.com for sale:
https://twitter.com/jstenn13/status/1066165202725421056


Happy New Year & Decade!

 

[bmugford]

Who uses GoDaddy anyway?

Well, GoDaddy is the #1 registrar in registration volume by a large margin.

They have around the same number of registrations as the rest of the top 10 combined.

Brad

 

[wwwweb]

Were you using the app to bid, it can sometimes show auction ended, then with lag it will restart again if a last second bid is placed.

 

[member-162055]

@member-162055 , I'm sorry for this loss. Really. May I ask you, why did you prepare a screenshot of the winning bid after you thought you won the auction? I mean, was there anything unusual that prompted you to do so? Or, isn't it the first time you experienced such an issue?
And, by the way, what (if anything) GD automatic system emailed you after the auction was finished?

Thank you! Because I don't TRUST GoDaddy, just look at their history. As I mentioned in my original post, the very popular site NoDaddy.com was exposing all the corruption at GoDaddy until GoDaddy bought them out because GoDaddy would rather screw over & scam their customers than do the right thing.

And it's not the first time I have been scammed by GoDaddy so I was being prepared for the worst which GoDaddy seems to deliver all too often. They actually reversed a domain I bought from their marketplace in the past after it was paid.

Godaddy did not email me after the auction was finished even though I won.

 

[wwwweb]

Thank you! Because I don't TRUST GoDaddy, just look at their history. As I mentioned in my original post, the very popular site NoDaddy.com was exposing all the corruption at GoDaddy until GoDaddy bought them out because GoDaddy would rather screw over & scam their customers than do the right thing.

And it's not the first time I have been scammed by GoDaddy so I was being prepared for the worst which GoDaddy seems to deliver all too often. They actually reversed a domain I bought from their marketplace in the past after it was paid.

Godaddy did not email me after the auction was finished even though I won.

Godaddy would have emailed you that you have been outbid?

 

[member-162055]

O boy i have promised myself to leave thread contribution , but I must add here. First sorry for your stress but if I may add, The true legal issue lays in much more. I do hope you follow onward for more than just your own restitution.

A corporation is supposedly held to this weird thing called " fair business practice " and updating available technology when so readily available versus making portfolio acquisitions and advertising/promoting their trust will never be enough to win in any fine print.

In my humble opinion i think the software issue will always be won by them.. for now, don't waste your time arguing with them or Joe, Go for the Lawyer and go for higher purpose. Disabling Level Fines for them is my promise. you make your own and I wish you well.

I am prepared to spend MUCH MORE for a lawyer than I should be paying for the domain. Matter of fact, I have already reached out to a couple domain attorneys. I deal with lawyers on a daily basis so it's nothing new for me!

 

[member-162055]

They are not in auctions business. And never were. As per ToS....

So what, they can write TOS that says they are not in the auctions business even though it's called GoDaddy Auctions and all the terminology they use are Auction terms such as "Bids". How can GoDaddy be in the auctions business, but yet have TOS that says they're not in the auctions business? They CAN'T!